Karl Marx City

This very personal documentary by Petra Epperlein and her husband Michael Tucker is part investigation of a puzzling suicide and part examination of the system that lay behind the tragedy. The filmmakers draw on the archives of the Stasi (the East German secret police)—including ghostly surveillance footage of unsuspecting civilians entering buildings or simply walking down the street—to illustrate the pervasively intrusive atmosphere that prevailed in the German Democratic Republic prior to the collapse of the Communist regime in 1990. Although Epperlein immigrated to the United States, her family remained in their hometown of Chemnitz, which had been renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1953 and remained so until 1990. In 1999, she received an enigmatic note written by her father before he hanged himself in the garden of a family home, and she returned to Germany to investigate the circumstances of his death. Interviewing her mother, brothers, and neighbors, as well as experts on the Stasi's operations, while also combing through the massive cache of records left behind, Epperlein learns that her father was troubled by anonymous accusations that he had conspired with the Stasi. Epperlein's search is presented in a very artsy fashion, with long, somber sequences of her traipsing through the grim city—brandishing a large microphone on her arm—while Epperlein's daughter Matilda ruminates in voiceover about her mother's quest. But the film effectively conveys the oppressive feel of a totalitarian regime and its horrific consequences. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)